IN HIS LATER YEARS, MERLE HAGGARD RECEIVED HONORS AND ACCOLADES
After prison, Merle Haggard pursued a career in music, and continued writing, performing, and influencing the industry until his last days. Billboard says he scored 38 #1 hits before he was done, and is often considered a primary architect of what came to be known as the “Bakersfield Sound” genre of Country music — less polished, more gutsy, more honky-tonk, compared to the slicker iterations of country that were ruling the airwaves and the performance venues up to that time. Haggard, alongside such artists as Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and his influential friend Johnny Case, were later considered to be pioneers in the “outlaw” subgenre of country music.
In 2010, Haggard became a Kennedy Center honoree alongside Sir Paul McCartney, according to Billboard. He also won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and inductions into both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Bob Dylan called him “herculean,” according to Rolling Stone, while Willie Nelson considered him “one of the best.” Not bad for an ex-con. Sadly, after a bout with double pneumonia, Haggard died on his 79th birthday, April 6, 2016.